Before Sex and the City there was Bridget Jones. And before Bridget Jones was The Artificial Silk Girl.

In 1931, a young woman writer living in Germany was inspired by Anita Loos's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to describe pre-war Berlin and the age of cinematic glamour through the eyes of a woman. The resulting novel, The Artificial Silk Girl, became an acclaimed bestseller and a masterwork of German literature, in the tradition of Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories and Bertolt Brecht's Three Penny Opera. Like Isherwood and Brecht, Keun revealed the dark underside of Berlin's "golden twenties" with empathy and honesty. Unfortunately, a Nazi censorship board banned Keun's work in 1933 and destroyed all existing copies of The Artificial Silk Girl. Only one English translation was published, in Great Britain, before the book disappeared in the chaos of the ensuing war. Today, more than seven decades later, the story of this quintessential "material girl" remains as relevant as ever, as an accessible new translation brings this lost classic to light once more. Other Press is pleased to announce the republication of The Artificial Silk Girl, elegantly translated by noted Germanist Kathie von Ankum, and with a new introduction by Harvard professor Maria Tatar.

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Descrição do produto

Before Sex and the City there was Bridget Jones. And before Bridget Jones was The Artificial Silk Girl.

In 1931, a young woman writer living in Germany was inspired by Anita Loos's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes to describe pre-war Berlin and the age of cinematic glamour through the eyes of a woman. The resulting novel, The Artificial Silk Girl, became an acclaimed bestseller and a masterwork of German literature, in the tradition of Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories and Bertolt Brecht's Three Penny Opera. Like Isherwood and Brecht, Keun revealed the dark underside of Berlin's "golden twenties" with empathy and honesty. Unfortunately, a Nazi censorship board banned Keun's work in 1933 and destroyed all existing copies of The Artificial Silk Girl. Only one English translation was published, in Great Britain, before the book disappeared in the chaos of the ensuing war. Today, more than seven decades later, the story of this quintessential "material girl" remains as relevant as ever, as an accessible new translation brings this lost classic to light once more. Other Press is pleased to announce the republication of The Artificial Silk Girl, elegantly translated by noted Germanist Kathie von Ankum, and with a new introduction by Harvard professor Maria Tatar.

Capa Interna

The Artificial Silk Girl is a rare portrait of the life of a young German woman at a time when the force of modernity in the Western world was at its most potent: with technology exploding and women freely entering the workforce, a new and frightening sense of existential individuality emerged. In the days before the Nazis came to power and suspended the development of German culture, Doris is a character whose irony and psychological insight startlingly mirror those of her contemporaries in France, England and America.

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5,0 de 5 estrelas“The city isn’t good and the city isn’t happy and the city is sick, but you are good and I thank you.”

2 de julho de 2015 - Publicada na Amazon.com

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(4.5 stars) First published in Germany in 1932, when author Irmgard Keun was only twenty-two, The Artificial Silk Girl, a bestselling novel of its day, is said to be for pre-Nazi Germany what Anita Loos’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925) is for Jazz Age America. Both novels capture the frantic spirit, the eat-drink-and-be-merry ambiance, and the materialism of young people like Doris – and Lorelei Lee in the Loos book – who haunt the urban clubs as they try to work their way into a lifestyle much grander and more vibrant than anything their mothers could ever have hoped for. Many attractive young women, regardless of their education and social experience, have set their hopes on becoming part of the privileged urban social scene, which they hope to achieve through the attentions of successful men with whom they flirt and seduce.

In The Artificial Silk Girl, main character Doris starts out in a small city, where she wants to be an actress, while supporting herself as a stenographer and eventually writing a commentary about her life which author Irmgard Keun presents as Doris’s point of view. The authorities in Germany were not pleased, however, with Keun’s published depiction of Berlin life as Hitler and the Nazis, preparing to take power, envisioned it. Within a year, her books were confiscated and all known copies were destroyed. In 1936, Keun, firmly opposed to Nazism, escaped Germany for Belgium, Holland, and later New York.

Doris, the “artificial silk girl,” has no politics, focusing almost completely on her own ambitions, and the novel that follows is both fun and very funny, based entirely on the persona of Doris – totally goal oriented, unafraid to take chances, willing to do anything to get what she wants, and very clever. Her voice – honest, bawdy, and surprisingly guileless – also shows her intelligence, and her pointed observations and insights into those around her give the author unlimited opportunities for unique descriptions: One restaurant is “a beer belly all lit up,” and dancing the tango “when you’re drunk…is like going down a slide.” Her feverish excitement at getting a small part in a show beguiles the reader, and when her outrageous behavior forces her to escape not only the theater but the city itself, the reader cannot help but root for her eventual success.

Dividing the novel into three parts reflecting the seasons and the symbolism associated with them, the author creates a wild, spontaneous, free-for-all of action in Part I, which takes place at the end of summer. Part II begins in Late Fall in Berlin, a much larger city, and the reader expects that this will be a darker and probably more contemplative time. The gradual change of mood here increases the reader’s identification with Doris and her goals. Part III, “A Lot of Winter and a Waiting Room,” introduces three men, each of whom affects Doris’s life and future and helps bring about new recognitions by Doris and a realistic conclusion to the novel. The book’s timeless themes regarding women and how they see themselves, combine with history in a unique way, giving life to a less publicized period of history and new insights into the lives of some of the women who lived through it.

I don't remember being quite as self-assured as the lead character when I was her age. Maybe it's her confidence mixed with naivety that creates a level of youthful arrogance that kept me turning pages. But where we see danger, Doris--our lead--sees opportunity. And she takes every one of them.

She begins her journal, our book, with such big plans; she will be a star, she will be rich, she will give people exactly what they have coming. But every step she takes is a step downward--little steps, quarter turns that barely register until she's hit the bottom. Towards the ends the narrative becomes almost frantic as painful memories and realizations collide with her desperate situation. You can feel her spiraling out of control, and you can feel the anxiety and heartbreak that come when you put someone before yourself for the first time.

Unlike other reviewers, I found subtle references to the political climate of the era--although it could have just been me, reading it, knowing what was coming.

While I found her attitude about sex fascinating considering the way previous generations have presented themselves (scrubbed clean and chaste), what I found even more surprising was how Doris hated the double standards and misogyny, but still used them to her advantage. If you can't beat 'em, play 'em a little harder?

I'm sure the Nazis had plenty of reasons for wanting to destroy this book. I'm glad they failed. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would.

The book is not a pleasant read but a good one. The main character is a girl who lives from day to day, totally self absorbed, in a Germany that offers little hope for a woman of the lower middle class - other than sleeping with men for survival, and occasionally pleasure. She lives in the moment, thinks of little but clothes, men, and diversion. I expected the German equivalent of "Gentlemen Prefer Blonds." This is darker, more telling, and much sadder. Banned by Hitler's Germany, it is a small classic that beautifully portrays a certain kind of girl in her own time and place. Think cigarette smoke, tawdry nights, and a girl with a mixture of cunning and naivete. If you are looking for the glamor of "Cabaret" (The Berlin Stories) you won't find it here. But you will get a snapshot of a lost world for which one can have little nostalgia.